CHAP. 23.- An act to provide that all pensions on account of death, or wounds received, or disease contracted in the service of the United States during the late war of the rebellion, which have been granted, or which shall hereafter be granted, shall commence from the date of death or discharge from the service of the United States; for the payment of arrears of pensions, and other purposes.
| Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all pensions which have granted under the general laws regulating pensions, or may hereafter be granted, in consequence of death from a cause which originated in the United States service during the continuance of the late war of the rebellion, or in consequence of wounds, injuries, or disease received or contracted in said service during said war of the rebellion, shall commence from the date of the death or discharge from said service of the person on whose account the claim has been or shall hereafter be granted, or from the termination of the right of the party having prior title to such pension: Provided, The rate of pension for the intervening time for which arrears of pension are hereby granted shall be the same per month for which the pension was originally granted.
SEC. 2. That the Commissioner of Pensions is hereby authorized and directed to adopt such rules and regulations for the payment of the arrears of pensions hereby granted as will be necessary to cause to be paid to such pensioners, or, if the pensioners shall have died, to the person or persons entitled to the same, all such arrears of pension as the pensioner may be, or would have been, entitled to under this act. SEC. 3. That section forty-seven hundred and seventeen of the Revised Statutes of the United States, which provides that “no claim for pension not prosecuted to a successful issue within five years from the date of filing the same shall be admitted without record from the War or Navy Department of the injury or the disease which resulted in the disability or death of the person on whose account the claim is made: Provided, That in any case in which the limitation prescribed by this section bars the further prosecution of the claim, the claimant may present, through the Pension Office, to the Adjutant-General of the Army or the Surgeon-General of the Navy, evidence that the disease or injury which resulted in the disability or death of the person on whose account the claim is made originated in the service and in the line of duty; and if such evidence is deemed satisfactory by the officer to whom it may be submitted, be shall cause a record of the fact so proved to be made, and a copy of the same to be transmitted to the Commissioner of Pensions, and the bar to the prosecution of the claim shall thereby be removed”, be, and the same is hereby, repealed. SEC. 4. No claim agent or other person shall be entitled to receive any compensation for services in making application for arrears of pension. SEC. 5. That all acts or parts of acts so far as they may conflict with the provisions of this act be, and the same are hereby, repealed. APPROVED, January 25, 1879 |